U.S. Seeks Indefinite Extension of Prosecution of Nazi Criminals

The United States delegation to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, currently in session here, announced today that it will introduce tomorrow an amendment to a draft U.N. Convention, barring statutes of limitations for all time on the prosecution and trial of war criminals and crimes against humanity involving “major” cases of charges of murder.

The announcement was made by Morris B. Abram, chief of the U.S. delegation to the Commission. Mr. Abram said that the restriction of the relevant clause to “major” war criminals only — those responsible for murder — would make the Convention acceptable to West Germany and would automatically become German law without the need for further legislation in the Bonn Parliament, after Germany had signed the document.

Referring obviously to West Germany, Mr. Abram said: “We hope that the Convention will be made acceptable to all governments, particularly those who have the major responsibility for the prosecution of Nazi criminals. This Convention can be the means of insuring justice and removing a troublesome and grave problem from the United Nations forums which deal with human rights.”

West Germany which, as a non-member of the United Nations, is only an observer at the Commission’s proceedings, has informed the Commission that it is opposed to the present draft of the Convention. According to Bonn, the present draft would extend the ban on statutes of limitations retroactively, affecting those cases to which the statute had already applied. Poland, on the other hand, has insisted that the ban apply to all cases of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Poland’s thrust is aimed mainly against West Germany, since statutes of limitations on war crimes trials have been eliminated by nearly all European countries.

GERMANY SEEKS TO AVOID REOPENING OF CASES ALREADY TRIED

According to German sources here, 6,100 persons have already been accused by German authorities of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and 15,000 more cases are under investigation. Bonn, said these sources, does not want a U.N. Convention that would force it to reopen cases already tried.

The German sources also pointed out that, under the latest revision of its laws on statutes of limitation regarding war crimes, adopted by the Bonn Parliament in 1965, after a hard fight, the deadline for the prosecution of war criminals had been fixed at December 31, 1969. If the U.N. should adopt the U.S. amendment, the Germans said, no further parliamentary action would be needed in Bonn, and trials for war criminals could be legally held in West Germany for an “indefinite” time beyond the 1969 deadline.

Mr. Abram, who outside his United Nations diplomatic post is president of the American Jewish Committee, said he will present another amendment requested by West Germany eliminating direct reference to the Nuremberg war crimes trials. As written by the U.N. Secretariat, and supported by the Soviet bloc in the Commission, the draft’s preamble now refers to the “International War Crimes Tribunal at Nuremberg.”

Sensitive to the specific mention of Nuremberg, West Germany has asked that the preamble refer only to the official name of the Allied document which authorized the Nuremberg trials, leaving out the name of Nuremberg. The official reference would then be, under the U.S. amendment, to “The Charter of the International Tribunal Dated August 8, 1945.”